Oleg Antakov
Serial Killer Proxy Killer Cop Killer |signature = Mutilating victims with a biting device before killing them |mo = Varied |victims = See below |status = Deceased |actor = William Forsythe |appearance = The Ripper of Riga }} "After you are dead, I'm going to take small chunks out of your son. Slowly and painfully, until he is begging for death. And then I will put his mouth on sidewalk, and I will curb him until there is nothing left but mush." Oleg Antakov, a.k.a. "The Ripper of Riga" or simply "The Ripper", was a KGB torturer and interrogator active in Soviet Latvia who used his skills to become a prolific serial killer in post-Communist Russia. He appeared in The Ripper of Riga. Background Oleg was a high-ranking KGB agent and the head interrogator of a Soviet secret torture base in Riga, Latvia. His signature move was to mutilate his victims with a metallic biting device of his own device, the "Metal Fang", which earned him his nickname of "The Ripper of Riga". Oleg lost his career and was disgraced with the fall of the USSR and the dissolution of the KGB in December 1991. Once he returned to Russia, he began to abduct, mutilate, and kill random people with the Metal Fang for his own amusement. The crimes were investigated by Russian detective Boris Poshakov with the unofficial assistance of FBI agent Jack Garrett, leading to Oleg's arrest. Because of Oleg's high-profile status in the former regime, his identity as a criminal wasn't released to the public, and he was put in solitary confinement at Erdeli Prison, a secret, high-security prison outside Saint Petersburg, without a trial. Through his years in prison, Oleg held Garrett as the man responsible for his arrest and plotted his escape to get revenge on him. As part of this plan, he gained the trust and sympathy of Ivan Kozar, one of the guards who was a Russian nationalist and who lacked a father figure, eventually turning him into his accomplice. The Ripper of Riga Garrett realizes Oleg's involvement in the abduction of an American ballet dancer in Saint Petersburg when his team finds one of her toes severed and bearing the distinctive marks of the Metal Fang. He visits Boris and tells him that the Ripper is back. Boris denies it and says that he is still in prison. When Garrett tells him about the new evidence consistent with his M.O., they decide to visit Oleg in prison to learn about what he knows. Once there, Oleg sarcastically calls them "old friends" and invites them into his cell, adding that they cannot decline because they need him, rather than the opposite. Indirectly, Oleg confirms that he used "a patsy" to abduct the dancer, get the FBI involved, and lure them to a trap in the patsy's apartment. Boris and Garrett, who have been told on the phone about a search in Kozar's apartment, run out of the cell to alert the people there, but they are unable stop the bomb from exploding. Meanwhile, Oleg uses their distraction to murder their police escort and several prison guards. Oleg's escape causes a conflict with the Russians, who blame the IRT for it and ask them to leave the country as soon as possible. However, after finding a file with information on Garrett's family at Kozar's home, the IRT realize that they are the real target of Oleg's plan. They activate the FBI's protocol to ensure their safety, but Kozar manages to abduct Ryan Garrett outside of a conference in Helsinki, Finland. Kozar delivers Ryan to Oleg in an abandoned Soviet military garage, and Oleg promptly shoots Kozar on the back of the head and beats Ryan severely. He finds Ryan's tracking device and puts it in Kozar's mouth to make sure Garrett finds them. In order to avoid an even worse international incident, Garrett tracks his son to the garage and confronts Oleg alone. Threatening Ryan, Oleg convinces Garrett to surrender his gun. After Garrett calls Oleg "a common thug with delusions of grandeur", Oleg orders Ryan to take another gun and shoot his father in the heart under the threat of being shot in the head himself. Ryan shoots Garrett, but Oleg tells him that he intends to kill Ryan slowly and painfully anyway before continuing his killing spree. Ryan tries to shoot Oleg, but the gun is empty, and Oleg mocks him. However, Ryan reveals that he was actually trying to distract him while he kicks his father's gun back to him. Garrett grabs the gun and kills him before Oleg can shoot him himself. Modus Operandi During his first phase as a serial killer, Oleg would abduct his victims, beat them, and tear bits and pieces of their bodies with his biting device, before murdering them. Profile No official profile of Oleg was made by the IRT had its attention at the time on Kozar. However, Garrett described Oleg as a narcissistic sadist who finds pleasure in inflicting pain to others because he cannot feel anything himself. Real-Life Comparison Oleg's backstory and nickname were likely inspired by the opening of the former KGB prison in Riga as a museum of the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 2015. In addition, Oleg appears to be a combination of several prolific Soviet serial killers: *Andrei Chikatilo, a.k.a. "The Rostov Ripper", who received an alliterative nickname consisting of the words "Ripper" and a city beginning with the letter "R", was active in Russia for decades, and bit chunks of flesh from his victims (though only sporadically in Chikatilo's case, while this was always the case in Oleg's). The backstory of Garrett collaborating unofficially with Boris to identify Oleg seems to be a loose allusion to forensic analyst Viktor Burakov's request to collaborate with the FBI during the investigation of the Rostov Ripper case, which was infamously turned down by the Soviet government. Galina Glazunov's contempt for criminal profiling seems likewise inspired by the popular idea that Chikatilo was free to kill for years because the Soviet government refused to admit that a serial killer could exist in their country and thought serial killers were exclusively an American phenomenon. *Serhiy Tkach, a.k.a "The Pologovsky Maniac", who was born in Russia but mostly active in (and received a nickname after a place in) a different Soviet republic, became a serial killer after his successful career in Soviet law enforcement ended in disgrace, and was sentenced to life in prison for his murders, long after the end of the USSR. *Nikolai Dzhumagaliev, a.k.a. "Metal Fang", a cannibal who used metal dentures (out of necessity in Dzhumagaliev's case, rather than for his own amusement like Oleg's), was imprisoned for life (although in a mental institution), and escaped from custody. In the show, "Metal Fang" is the name of the biting device used by Oleg. *Anatoly Slivko, a Russian serial killer who dismembered his victims, and was interviewed in prison about the crimes of a different offender assumed to be similar to him (the aforementioned Rostov Ripper). Furthermore, Oleg's actions in the episode follow part of the plot of the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs, which is also about a serial killer who is interviewed in prison by an FBI agent investigating another criminal on the loose, has the imprisoned killer knowing the identity of the other criminal but speaking in riddles rather than outright stating it, and said killer later escaping and murdering several prison guards in the process. As such, Oleg could be considered as indirectly based from the fictional killer's real-life inspiration, the Mexican doctor and serial killer Alfredo Ballí Treviño. Known Victims Personal Victims *c. 1980s-1991, Riga, Latvia: Several unnamed prisoners *c. 1992-unspecifed year, Russia: Several unnamed victims *2017, Saint Petersburg, Russia: **The escape from Erdeli Prison: ***Three unnamed prison guards ***An unnamed FSB officer **The abandoned military garage standoff: ***Ivan Kozar ***Ryan Garrett Proxy Victims *2017, Saint Petersburg, Russia: **Felicia Pope **The apartment bombing committed by Kozar: ***Two unnamed FSB officers ***Major General Galina Glazunov ***Matthew Simmons ***Mae Jarvis ***Clara Seger **Jack Garrett Appearances *Season Two **The Ripper of Riga Category:Russian Criminals Category:Beyond Borders Characters Category:Deceased